lation, with India set to overtake China as the world’s
most populous country in the next few years.
An additional, and perhaps more valuable advantage
India has is the established high volume moulded
plastic supply chain. India is the world’s number 5 car
exporter, and nearly every major car brand has signifi-
cant production in India, from Mercedes Benz to JCB,
from BMW to Honda or Hyundai, you will find massive
car plants in several regions of India, along with
$billion supply chain companies. India has vast
moulded plastic expertise, as so much of the interior
of cars is moulded plastic these days. Somewhere in
the region of 25 million people work in India’s automo-
tive industry. Therefore, toy production facilities have
sprung up around the automotive hubs, especially
near Mumbai & Chennai.
India has two further significant advantages for toy
manufacturing – due to much lower labour costs and
advanced automotive lean manufacturing/engineer-
ing disciplines, typical ex-factory costs in India are
around 10% cheaper vs China (on average & in my
experience of quoting manufacturing).
The other major advantage is India’s labour law & local
regulations are much more protective of the worker
versus China for instance. Therefore, Indian factories
Page 06 | Kids India Mag Issue: July 2017
tend to breeze through critical toy industry audits
including ICRI, Walmart FCCA & licensor audits such
as Disney.
Finally, as nearly all Indian business people speak
English (albeit with a bit of an accent), communication
can be easier versus some other toy producing
countries.
The challenge for those looking to harness Indian toy
manufacturing is that there is no one place to go, nor is
there really the same established industry ‘scene’ as
Hong Kong offers for China. Therefore, Kids India is
likely to be the best place to meet potential new
suppliers and to investigate the market in general!
Steve Reece is a leading Toy industry
consultant. He runs Kids Brand
Insight a company which advises toy
companies around the world and
also Toy Team India, a consultancy
business which helps toy companies
find Indian toy manufacturing and
helps Indian vendors enter the toy
market & recruit new customers.
www.KidsBrandInsight.com / www.ToyTeamIndia.com